A Fairies Death Knell
by LeStrange and Quinzel
Summary: How had you ended up like this, infatuated and stuck on some of the weirdest missions known to mage kind? You had just been in the guild hall, hanging out with your friends, and now your life was, typically, in danger. It was all his fault. Multichapter Reader x Various.
1. Sick Day (Guild)

**Okay so this is my first attempts at a reader insert. I'm not sure who I'm pairing anyone with, or even where this is going. It's either going to be a bunch of one/two shots or a continuous story following of the plot of the anime, you guys can decide, just let me know which you prefer.**

**As usual I don't own Fairy Tail, or you, but I do own your magic. Sorta.**

* * *

The guild hall was, once more, in a state of chaos. Chairs flew as quickly as insults and various magic's tore through the area, destroying furniture and turning once peaceful observers into violent participants.

_How did I end up in this place?_ You asked yourself, drawing a leg up between your rear end and the seat of the barstool as you took a drink and leaned against the counter, ducking a fire ball Natsu had seen fit to lob your way.

"Watch where you throw those things Flame Brain!" you barked, reaching up to make sure he hadn't singed your hair. Mira giggled from behind the counter, unperturbed by your make shift families crazed nature, though you supposed she would be, considering she had been in the guild for longer than you had been practicing magic. Natsu hardly shouted half an apology before Gray tackled him from the side, down to only his boxers.

"You're not going to get in there too?" Cana drew your gaze to the right and you sighed, watching her set down the barrel of liquor she had somehow managed to finish. Those things weighed more than you did, how she managed to chug it all down was beyond your comprehension.

"No," you propped your hand on your chin, listing to the tinkling of the bells in your hair as they fell with the pull of gravity, "I'm not feeling too hot, I think I'll sit this one out."

"Are you alright?" Lucy took a seat beside you, taking refuge from the calamity that would soon befall the building, "You're not looking so good. Er, no offense," the newest member of your family gave you an apologetic smile, blond hair down for that day and brown eyes taking in your features carefully.

You knew you were probably looking a bit worse for wear, truth be told you hadn't been able to sleep well for the past few nights and you had woken up with a head ache the day before that had only increased in severity as time wore on. Just in the past hour you had sneezed eight times.

"I think I might be getting sick," you admitted, twisting one of the bracelets you wore and letting the miniature bells chime as they were turned round your wrist. Too bad your magic couldn't cure a cold. You could make a fortune doing that, just fixing the sniffles for whatever poor sucker caught it. It would be especially valuable after a bad storm, or during the fall…

"-uo in there?" fingers snapped an inch from your nose and you jerked back in surprise, almost toppling over onto the floor but managing to catch your feet on the edge of the counter, holding yourself horizontal from the ground and looking up to find Gray standing over you on your right, Lucy peeking over his bare shoulder and Natsu standing to your left, obscuring the view of a very passed out card mage. It was Gray who had snapped his fingers, but Natsu's voice had rung clearly before, calling you back from your musings of fortune to the present day and your crappy immune system. Your head spun from the sudden change of altitude and the congestion that clogged your breath and pressed against your skull sent a sudden spell of dizziness through your head and resulted in you crashing to the floor. Or you would have if Grey hadn't grabbed the front of your shirt, keeping you from cracking your head open.

Natsu shouted your name much louder than was necessary, drawing the attention of Loke and Erza, the two guild members closest to you and your growing group of concerned fellows.

"Perhaps it would be best if you went home and rested for the remainder of the day," Erza commented, she and you both ignoring the snort from Grey and Lucy's comment about a week being more helpful.

"Come on, I'll take you home," Loke gave you one of his more charming smiles and you studiously ignored the irritating flop of your stomach, pretending it was just your cold. Even if you weren't as infatuated with the ginger as many other women you knew you had to admit he was attractive, the fact that he was one of the nicer guys you had met didn't hurt anything. Of course many of your guild mates could have the same said about them, Natsu and Grey were easy on the eyes in their own ways, Freed and Alzack were the same. Come to think of it most of your guild was unusually attractive and freakishly strong.

You hardly realized that Natsu and Grey were making odd comments in defense of your 'virtue' regarding Loke's reputation, which you ignored. You worked with Loke enough that you had come to an understanding. He doesn't do anything overly perverse, and you don't blast his ears out. It was a very effective deal. Didn't stop him from flirting with you, and didn't stop you from slapping him when he said something weirder than normal, but it kept you friends without the benefits.

In the end Loke looped an arm through yours, despite your irritated protests that you had a cold, not a broken leg and Grey froze a towel that he wrapped around your head to keep your temperature down after Natsu had proclaimed it hot even for his standards. You were sicker than you first thought it seemed, and all three boys plus Erza accompanied you back to your house, Cana unable to attend due to her lack of consciousness and Lucy had to leave shortly after your close encounter of the floorth kind or risk being late for a job that would pay her rent for next three months.

When you got there Erza used your spare key ("under the rock by the roses. It's plastic") to get the door open and you found yourself set down on your wonderfully comfy couch while Grey grabbed your favorite blanket out of the three layered on your bed (the fact that he remembered you always brought the fur lined one on missions touched you) and Natsu went about heating up (burning) a can of soup he found in your cupboard. Erza took it upon herself to scold you for getting up and leaving the house when your temperature was, apparently, a hundred and three degrees by the dragon slayers estimate and Loke expressed his disbelief that you hadn't noticed how bad it was.

You just curled up on your couch, wondering where Happy was.


	2. Wide Awake (Mystogan)

**Second chapter up.**

**X Mystogan.**

* * *

Everything was back to normal it seemed.

You had gotten back from a job request up north with Laki, the pay split fifty/fifty, to find the entire guild crowded out in the streets. Natsu and Erza stood across from each other, ready to fight.

And fight they did. Erza reequipped into flame empress armor and Natsu rushed her without much thought, throwing flames all around and spilling them out, nearly lighting you and half of your fellow mages on fire in the process. It had seemed like a good fight, and you put your money on Erza (much to Lucy's lack of understanding, "they're friends, shouldn't they not fight?"), but before they could seriously get into it one of the magic counsels frogs (seriously, isn't that a bit cliché?) had interrupted and put Erza under arrest.

You and the rest of Fairy Tail had spent the rest of the day mopping around the hall, drowning your sorrows in alcohol, or in the case of you and the rest of those under drinking age, pretending you weren't about to jump out of your skin at the slightest mention of your friends well being. It didn't help any when you found out Natsu had run off to do something stupid.

But in the end it all worked out, Erza and the flame head were back in the guild hall before the sun set and everyone was in much higher spirits.

"I'm not lettin you off the hook that easy!" you looked up to see Natsu charging and very Zen Erza, sighing when she mumbled about not being in the mood to fight and promptly punching the dragon slayer in the stomach so hard he passed out then and there. You laughed from your place beside Gray and Elfman, elbowing Lucy to let her know no harm had actually been done. She worried too much.

Then you felt it. The irritating and sudden fit of tiredness that wouldn't go away no matter how much coffee you drank. Your eyes grew heavy and you swayed in you seat, stumbling as you struggled to keep your eyes open. You knew this spell, knew it and hated it.

Mystogan was coming.

You reached up, flicking the bell that had been tied into your hair that morning and letting the waves of sound wash over you, hoping it would fight back the sleep you knew was coming. It was stupid hope, you were well aware of this, but you still had to try. That bell you had personally spelled to keep one awake. You met the man only once in all your years as a member of Fairy Tail, and since then he had fascinated you like no other. There were so many questions you wanted to ask, so many blows you wanted to deal him for the time you had almost impaled yourself on a knife you'd been holding at the time of his visit.

The exhaustion waned ever so slightly and you found yourself slumping against the counter, trying to keep yourself awake and standing as the world grew blurry and your eyes grew heavy. One by one everyone fell to the ground, mumbling quiet curses at your most mysterious member. Some how you managed to stay awake.

You saw him come in, dark and cloaked and bandaged for unknown reasons. Mirajane was on the floor behind the counter, and Master was sitting on the wood next to you, head dropping as badly as yours. He mumbled the S-class wizards name, watching with you as the heavily cloaked man walked by and snatched a leaflet of a request off the board. You had never stayed awake this long around him before, not since your first meeting, and you were struggling not to fall asleep even as he turned to walk out. You tried to reach out and grab his cloak, slap his arm, anything, but all you ended up doing was loosing yourself and falling.

The world blurred as the floor came up to greet your face and you waited for an impact than never came. A single arm, long and strong had looped around your waist, stopping your fall and shaking your bells. Two fell from your hair and your bangles jingled around wrists and ankles as you found yourself being held up by the one member of Fairy Tail you had never sat down and talked with.

Mystogan held you against his side, supporting you as his spell hit your harder and the world span. You watched through blurred vision as he showed his next job to the Master for some sort of approval before speaking.

"I shall return," was all he said, but the sound was, from then on, permanently ingrained into your mind, fixed in the recesses of you memory, never to escape. You remembered everyone, if not their face then their voice, and the sound of their heart, _his _heart, beating into your ears, steady and smooth.

"Wait," Makarov ordered, trying to lift his head, "lift your sleeping spell before you go."

You felt more than you heard him hum, a deep sound that reverberated through the chest your head was resting on. Slowly, almost gently, Mystogan knelt down, settling you on the ground against the bar counter. You watched through semi-consciousness as he gathered your fallen bells and placed them in your hand, curling your fingers around them before reaching up, brushing a few strands of hair out of your face.

"Five," he said, reaching into his cloak and producing a small silver sphere. It hung from a dark blue ribbon, the same shade as the mans mask, and you were still as he tied it into your hair, messier than your usual weaving ribbon through strands. He flicked it and you heard the bell ring, clearing your senses in an instant.

You blinked, suddenly fully awake and functional.

"Four," the man stood and turned his back on you, starting for the door and passing his passed out guild mates.

"Three," you stood as well, shaking off whatever cobwebs had gathered in your brain. The job hadn't been S-class right?

"Two," he was almost out the door and you were rushing after him, jangling in your hastened steps and quickly braiding your fallen bells back into place.

"One," you caught up to him just as the light of the sun consumed his figure, falling into step beside him as the brilliance of the star enveloped the both of you.


	3. Listen To Your Heart (Gray)

**Third in a row, thank you Netflix.**

**X Gray. Kinda sad, kinda fluff, forgive me.**

* * *

You were going to kill him. When this was all over, you were murdering Natsu Dragneel, no ifs ands or buts. It was his fault you were there, his fault you and gray and Erza had had to come get his sorry ass, his fault you were freezing in an underground cave on a cursed island, staring up at a frozen you didn't-care-what.

It was his fault Gray was sad.

He sat on a slab of stone, hands clasped to tightly in front of him you half expected him to rip straight through the skin. You stood a little ways off, not sure if you should intrude on him or not. The ice mage was notorious for being like the element he wielded, distant and sometimes cold.

"This is so boring," you looked to Lucy, arching a brow when she stood up, face splitting with what appeared to be an epiphany, "I've got it! _Open Gate of the Harp Constellation, Lyra!"_

Smoke filled the air you found yourself staring at another one of Lucy's spirits, the third you had met thus far. A blue dress puffed out from the female spirits form and a pink bonnet wrapped around semi ginger locks, giving way to a pair of tiny white wings. A harp was held in the summons hand and you sat up immediately, focusing in on the instrument.

"Lucy! I haven't seen you in forever! How come you never call me? I would love to help you out, but you ignore me Meany," you giggled at spirits childish behavior, watching Lucy sigh and shake her head.

"Meany huh? You're the one who told me you're only available three days a month," you laughed at the conversation the followed, smiling at willing to please Lyra. The pink haired one, Virgo, had been much more eager to satisfy Lucy's requests, but Lyra seemed happy to help however she could. And however she could involved playing one of the most beautiful songs you'd ever heard.

You sucked in sharply, stunned by the singing of the spirit. You reached to summon you recordings from their magical concealment before stopping, turning back around to look at Gray. You heard it first, the hitch in his breath, the skips and sudden changes in his pulse, pumping through your ears the same as Lucy's and Natsu's, Lyra's Happy's, changing rhythm. You weren't the only one who noticed either, but when Lucy made to ask what was wrong you held up a hand, stopping her and crossing the short distance to your friend's side.

You knew what he would say if you asked, "nothing's wrong," he would lie, even knowing you could hear it when he did. So instead you sat behind him, listening to Lucy talk to her spirit about music and listening to Gray's rational suggestion of no more music, and how you all didn't want to be found out.

You leaned back, letting you back hit his and felling him take in a slow breath before putting some of his weight back on you. Without a word you reached back, you left hand brushing against his right and letting your fingers rest just above his own.

You knew he wouldn't let you do anymore.


	4. When You Come Home (Laxus)

Why were you in love with such an ass?

Okay, so maybe he wasn't _always _an ass. When you first found yourself fancying him he was still nice, a bit older than you and undeniably cute to your thirteen year old heart, his sixteen year old self being nice to you, and cool, and tough, and it drew you in and now you were paying for it.

You hadn't confessed to him or anything, hell if might have been easier to take if he had just rejected you, but no. You had seen the brightly lit sign of cash in that stupid contest and just had to take part, your competitive nature and shortage of money tricking you into doing stupid things (and if he happened to be watching while you preformed then so be it) like parading around on stage in some freakishly skimpy piece of cloth Cana had convinced you looked nice. And then what happens? When then one of your loves subordinates turned into stone that's what.

When you were freed from the spell you found yourself thrown into battle with Lucy, a battle you surrendered quickly. She wasn't a better fighter than you, but you would kill yourself before you rose a hand to your friends. It was a good thing too, because her words inspired you to get yourself burn to a crisp destroying Lacrima.

So now you stood in the guild hall, staring at the closed door that held your master and the subject of your stupid, _stupid_ crush. You knew him better than others, listened more than others too, not just to him but to the thunder trio as well. You understood, at least to a smaller extent, why he had done such a thing. The fact that your hypersensitive hearing was picking up every word being said on the other side of the door didn't hurt anything either, and you forgave him. Or you would after you slapped his dumb face silly. Before they could finish their talk you knew what the master's judgment would be.

You didn't put your family in danger, that was the first and most important rule of Fairy Tail, and Laxus had shattered it into a million pieces.

You left the guild hall quickly, making some excuse about forgetting to turn off your curling iron that morning (wouldn't be the first time it happened) and sprinting off to your home, using your magic to pick up speed until you were bouncing off sound waves just below the speed of, shooting through the town at near bullet speed.

* * *

When he reached the edge of town you were waiting for him, still glittering your parade wear, hair twisted and curled intricately and your gold and silver clothes draped over your body, shining in the dark of the night. You knew the path he would take, had waited until his heart beat reached your ears to drop down, hanging upside down in one of the trees and watching as he crested the hill, a simple bag slung over his heavily bandaged shoulder. Bandages you had taken the time to wrap when Levy and Freed had dragged the three dragon slayers to your twitching remains.

"Why are you here?" he asked, stopping and looking up at you. You shrugged and swung yourself down, flipping in the air before standing in front of him. You waited a moment before crooking your finger at him, watching the lightning dragon give you an irritated look before leaning down to eye level with your shorter height. You pulled the hidden surprise out from its hiding place (You would have to thank Erza again for teaching you that storage trick) and reached up.

Laxus was still, staring at you oddly while you fitted the brand new set of head phones over his ears. They were just like the ones he had had before but with a few adjustments of your own added in, and when he tilted his head to the side they stayed perfectly in place. That done you promptly socked him in the jaw.

He brought a hand up, rubbing the sore spot in his miraculously not broken face and shook his head at your contradictory actions.

"Damn woman what was that supposed to mean?" he mumbled, popping his jaw and rotating his neck. You winced at the cracking it made.

"It means that I'll pay you back completely when you come home. Now get out of here you asshole," you jerked your head to the woods behind you, listening to Laxus laugh as he walked past, ruffling your hair and shaking you bells. You knew you couldn't go with him, and knew that he would only make fun of you if you tried for anything short of a violent and tough goodbye.

"Home huh? Guess I'll see ya then."


	5. Haircuts (Freed)

Freed entered the guild hall, tugging at one of the long locks of emerald that hung from his head and looking around for the object of his affection. Not seeing her in the vicinity he went to the person who always knew where everyone was, Mirajane.

"Miss Mirajane?" the silver haired girl looked up from where she was drying a glass, blinking a couple of times at the older mage before her. A smile lit her face, surprising the man by the cheery greeting he received from the girl who had soundly beaten him up less than three days previously.

"I was looking for someone," he admitted, mentioning your name in a slightly quieter tone and watching Mirajane's smile grow before she set the glass away.

"She's staying home today to repair some of her bells that were damaged during the fighting," she explained, and Freed felt a jolt of guilt shoot through his when he remembered the injuries you had sustained because of his spell.

"Do you happen to know where she lives?" he asked, thanking the eldest Strauss for her assistance when she wrote down the address and handed it to him, leaving the guild hall then and making the walk to your house. He was surprised by how far away you lived from the guild and when he arrived he had to wait a few moments before he actually had the courage to knock. He was sure you would be angry with him, and he actually turned on his heal and started walking away when the door opened and a voice, your voice, met his ears.

"Where the hell are you going?" he turned for the second time in thirty seconds and found you standing in your now open doorway, arms crossed over your chest and single brow raised in question. He hesitated, watching you push the door open further and stand there in only in pajama pants and a tank top, bandages peeking out of the straps over your shoulders and covering you right arm almost completely.

"How did you know I was here?" He asked and you snorted in response, smiling at him in amused fashion and tapping the tip of one of your ears.

"I can hear your heart beating from here Freed, and your magic has a sound different than anyone else's so I knew it was you," he nodded at your response, walking back towards your door.

"That's right, I had forgotten you use sound magic," he followed you inside when you motioned that he should enter and took a quick glance around at the home. There were multiple shelves holding a variety of things on the walls, from musical instruments to small bobbles from tourist traps in other cities.

"Yeah, I do. So was there something you needed or did you just decide to drop by for lunch?" you took a seat on the futon on your living room and gestured for Freed to sit in the recliner that Natsu had singed during his visit to your place a few weeks before.

"I was hoping to ask you a favor," you looked up and he watched a tilt in your eyes and a quirk in your lips, sure signs that he had caught your interest then.

* * *

You gripped the scissors tightly in hand, your normally pinned hair falling out from behind your ears as you leaned over your new project, snipping away steadily and measuring each cut carefully. Green pooled at your kitchen floor, locks longer than yours resting on the tile as you chopped off the hair of the man seated in your home. You let out a slow breath, watching forlornly at the very last long lock fell to the floor.

You had always liked Freed, well at first it had just been his hair, it had always been so interesting for you, and when you were younger you had always made him let you braid it whenever you were both in the guild hall. Through the years your fondness for his hair had grown to encompass the rest of the young man until you found yourself hopelessly in like with him. You weren't sure if you would call it love necessarily, especially since he had joined the thunder legion he had grown distant from you, a development you hated completely.

When he had shown up at your house you weren't sure what to make of it, as a matter of fact when you first heard his magic resonating outside your door you had had every intention of blowing his ears out. But when you heard the unsteady thump of his pulse you had swallowed your anger and invited him in. When he had requested that you cut his hair you had been shocked, until he explained that it was his way of serving penance for his crimes against the guild. You didn't completely forgive him, but your anger had vanished and you had agreed, no matter how sad it made you to watch your floor get covered in green.

"Thank you," he turned to face you when you set the scissors down on the table and your breath caught when he gave you an honest smile. You returned the smile and ruffled the new spikes, laughing at the mildly disgruntled face Freed made in response.

"Don't mention it," you told him, observing your floor in slight distaste, "You're cleaning this up though."

Freed just nodded, watching you reach over to brush a few stray strands off his shoulders.


	6. S-Class (Gajeel) Part 1

You could hear them.

Natsu's magic roared and cracked a floor above yours, accompanied by a strange magic you had never heard before then. There was something similar to your fire eating friends in the tones, though it sounded more like metal, steal specifically, tapping against itself than wood blazing. Quieter and more refined was the magic of Lucy and Happy, as well as five, six, seven others you didn't know. Your feet hit the ground rapidly as you tore through the Phantom Lord fortress, trying to find a way to the floor over your head. You didn't have enough magic left to waste on breaking stone.

As it turned out you were in luck. A second after you first took note of the tones of spells above there was a roar, no, _two _roars, infused with dragons magic. Which meant that the metallic sounding mage was Gajeel, the one who had kidnapped Lucy and hurt Shadow Gear. Anger rolled inside your body and you launched yourself out of the way just before a decent sized hole was blown in the ceiling and you were given a place to jump up.

You almost wished you hadn't. Scattered around you were members of your rival guild, all in pretty bad shape, as well as rubble, clearly visible in the drifting dust and smoke. Off to one side you saw Lucy, sitting on the ground with Happy at her side.

That was good; at least she was relatively safe.

"I'll crack you into a million pieces!" you almost winced at the sudden assault to your sensitive ears from one very fired up dragon slayer, now consumed in fire and ready to fight. God he was such a hot head. A malicious laugh brought your gaze to the opponent.

"Let's go!" he shouted, clearly just as excited as your friend. Metal glinted off his entire body and you frowned slightly at the sight of the scales, wondering if it was dragon slayer magic or some hybrid of that and take over magic. You couldn't be sure.

But one thing you were positive of, he was beyond strong.

* * *

It was nearly a month later and you had finally given in and forgone your mostly faux grudge against Gajeel, at the behest of Levy. That girl was far too nice for her own good, in your opinion.

But once the grudge was gone you found yourself staring at the iron dragon slayer more often, listening more closely to his actually not bad voice. It was interesting, and you had stored up a few of the songs he had sung in open bottom bells that you had learned to save sounds inside of.

Happy had been the one to figure it out first, even if it was just a way to get under your skin. Levy was next, and while she didn't tease you about it she found a great amount of amusement in her discovery. Juvia was the third, and it was at her prompting and encouragement that you actually acted on your feelings.

"Hey, Gajeel?" the dark haired man looked up at you from where he sat alone on one of the benches, eating a strange assortment of random pieces of metal. He grunted and swallowed before addressing you.

"What is it?" gruff reply, as you had expected.

"I'm taking an S-class mission, and I would rather have some back up than go alone. Any chance you feel like coming with me?" you asked carefully, trying to avoid fiddling with your shirt or giving away your nervousness.

"Don't you need an S-class mage to go on those missions?" Gajeel asked, and you frowned at the question. He didn't know?

"I am S-Class," you stated, and the other gave you a strange look, "I'm serious, ask anyone. I passed the test like five years ago."

Gajeel stared at you blankly for several seconds before Macao, who had been sitting fairly close by, cut in.

"She's telling the truth," he said, drawing Gajeel's attention to him, "she passed the test the year before Erza did, just after Laxus's."

"So," you butted in, trying to get back on track, "D'you want to come or not?"

He stared at you for a second before shrugging and tossing a screw in his mouth and gave a non-descript 'why not?'


End file.
